(02-02-2009 02:29 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: (02-02-2009 02:03 PM)erice Wrote: (02-02-2009 01:38 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: And I would guess you were the former group, erice. Faith is a wonderful thing - I just wish i could find it like so many of the Obamans.
I would probably be skeptical of any claim of jobs saved without a background of how that number was determined. So if at the end of a year, the there has been no increase or decrease in jobs actually in force, but the administration claims their package is working because they saved 7 million jobs, should we accept that? If Bush had made the claims that although his job increases in most of the months and years were modest, they were actually quite large when you add in the jobs 'saved", would the Democrats have accepted that reading? I think not.
Job increase/decrease is easy - you just take the employment at the end of a period and subtract the employment at the beginning. But jobs saved is a number that you can make up. Look out the window and say the first number that comes to mind. I am asking if there is a way to somewhat back up that number. if not, then I predict Obama will be successful at saving whatever number of jobs he wants.
I went to Target yesterday. That saved 19 jobs. Prove me wrong. Gassed up my car today. Nobody got hired, but I saved that clerk's job. Pat on the back for me. I will singlehandedly save 1,411 jobs this year. More or less.
If you have as much faith in me as you do Obama, you will accept my numbers.
Honestly, if any president, of any party, was using this "jobs saved", I would be asking how it could reliably be quantified. I was hoping some BHO defender would be able tell me that BLS or some other agency could determine it, but i don't think there is yet a line on the questionaires for that (I used to fill those out for the BLS).
Outside the umbrella of industry-specific programs, I don't think a "jobs created" number is necessarily much more trackable than a "jobs saved" number. If 200,000 new jobs are created in February (fat chance), is that because of Congress' TARP financing? In spite of it? Completely unrelated?
To butcher your analogy, If I shop at Target today, and then I check with HR at Target and find out that Target actually did increase its headcount by 19 today, does that mean I created those 19 jobs? I can do the subtraction, but there's no causality.
If Obama's advisors are telling him that, in this bad economy, there's no hope of increasing jobs over the next X months, the best we can hope for is to take some steps to minimize the losses... What message would you have him convey? Vote for my stimulus package and the nation's payroll will go down by Y million?
I see your point... it's completely impossible to call him on it after the fact. Very true. But what else should he do? Throw his hands up in the air and forget about it? Just because you can't measure the jobs saved doesn't mean you shouldn't try to save them.
1. Yeah, "Jobs created" is a misnomer. what they actually mean is "net Increase (Decrease) in jobs filled". So the 200K number might actually bethe net of 300K new, 100K lost. As to why the net increase, it could be a lot of things. But those are increases or decreases in actual numbers. Throwing out numbers for jobs saved, apparently, has nothing to do with actual numbers. Using your 200K, can we expect Obama to take credit for 3.2 million jobs, 200K created and 3,000,000 saved. why not 4.2 million while we're at it. sounds better. No, make it 5.
2. The points are (a) you don't actually need 19 (or any) new jobs at Target to claim you saved jobs, (b), you can pick any number of jobs saved, it doesn't have to be 19, and © nobody can prove your numbers wrong(or right). Heck it you want to claim 23 at Wal-mart too, go ahead. Who's to prove you wrong?
3. Well, the truth is often a good start. If his goal is to break even, then he should say so, explaining that the stimulus, etc, will be required just to stay even. Now we have a quantifiable goal, with results that are verifiable. Then move ahead with the actions needed.
4. Pretty much the same as #3
Let's see, truth, honesty, transparency - aren't these the principles he campaigned on?
I really don't blame him for trying to do something. He doesn't have much choice.
My big issue with the 'transparency' has mostly to do with the folks in Congress who continue to see the rest of America as idiots.
This is supposed to be a stimulus package. In reality it is 3 parts stimulus package, 1 part relief program (i.e. funding to cover job losses and the problems they create, unemployment benefits, covering more people with insurance, etc), and 1 part or more of the Democrats trying to jump start every program they campaigned on under the guise of a stimulus bill.
I don't have any clue as to whether my 60/20/20 split is correct, it may be worse, but there's no doubt such a split exists.
If you want honesty and transparency, then Congress splits this up into:
a. a stimulus package (infrastructure, tax relief, tax incentives for cars, etc)
b. a relief package (let's face it, this portion of the package is likely to need continued funding in the future - - so it really falls outside of the intent of the stimulus spending which should be high now, with hopefully a reduction in the budget in the future) If we really need this, then the Democrats should be able to push it on its own merits.
c. Health care and other 'agenda' items separated out to be judged on their own merits.
Congress is not really any different than a homeless person asking you for money. (Yes, the money the government has, is our money). When directly approached by someone for food, I've walked (and even driven) them to a fast food place and gotten them a meal. I don't just hand them $10 and hope they don't spend it on cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets.
If the government tells us they need food (stimulus), I don't really want them to spend on cigarettes (non-stimulus related Democratic agenda) or beer (relief - - which I suppose beer can be to some).
Don't get me wrong, if we need a relief bill, it should be considered. But it shouldn't be hidden in the middle of the stimulus package and slipped through under the misleading advertising of "we need to do something now, or things could get very bad". The relief portion of the bill is either there because (a) they think it's going to get very bad anyway, or (b) they want to make sure they keep voter support from their constituent base, even if it isn't the fiscally prudent thing to do.
In any case, if things ARE getting bad, no one (GOP or Dems) is going to stand in the way of a relief bill . . . . and maybe the relief portion should be based upon the success or failure of the stimulus package anyway.
As for the stuff that's neither stimulus related or relief related . . . . well, the question has always been whether the President could afford to push all of his platform, particularly in this kind of economy.
That should truly be debated separately. The Democrats would love to hide as much stuff as they can in the stimulus package (and no doubt a few Republicans as well) because the answer to the question of whether the required spending would be prudent is not one they want to hear if it were discussed in an open debate on the merits of the non-stimulus, non-relief spending alone (given our deficit and the economy).
